Russia has effectively increased the number of air targets for attacks on energy facilities tenfold: while at the beginning of the war, 2-3 drones flew at a single facility, now it is 20-25 drones per attack, reported Vitaliy Zaichenko, Chairman of the Management Board of National Power Company, Ukrenergo.
"The number of UAV strikes used against a single facility has grown from 2-3 at the beginning of the war to 20-25 per attack now. Frontline regions and regions through which electricity is transmitted to the rest of Ukraine suffer the most," Zaichenko said during the event "Decentralization 2.0: Strengthening Power System Resilience Together" organized by Ukrenergo.
At the same time, Zaichenko emphasized that the power system withstood thanks to the work of Ukrainian power engineers and the support of international partners.
The Chairman of the Management Board of Ukrenergo drew attention to the fact that the nature of attacks changed during the war – now they are complex strikes on power plants, substations, and switchgears.
"Thanks to the buildup of UAVs and missiles, Russia carries out massive attacks across all of Ukraine," he stressed.
According to him, there are already 25,000 damaged facilities in the electricity transmission system, and Ukraine has lost 50% of its generation capacity, with maneuverable generation, which must quickly balance the power system, suffering the most.
Zaichenko also noted that the average number of simultaneously disconnected consumers fluctuated from 3.8 million in March to 6.5 million in February, the most difficult month in terms of outages.
According to his calculations, in particular, forced outages in January-February reduced actual electricity consumption by 6.5 billion kWh – which equals 135 days of average consumption in Kyiv.
As reported, at the same event, Zaichenko stated that the losses of NPC Ukrenergo from military actions of Russia during the full-scale invasion amount to nearly UAH 90 billion.
At the same time, as noted in his presentation, 12 million citizens were disconnected from energy consumption simultaneously in Ukraine due to attacks by Russia, which occurred on February 8, 2026.
According to First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal, who spoke at the "Decentralization 2.0" event, last winter the country’s available energy capacity "fell below 11 GW" due to strikes by Russia.
Ukraine recently announced the largest tender in its history for the construction of 1.5 GW of new generation in energy-deficient regions. The winners of the tender will receive compensation from Ukrenergo for the price of electricity during morning and evening hours through a market premium mechanism up to the electricity price level established as a result of the tender (the maximum possible price is up to 27.92 euro cents per 1 kWh).
